2015 will go down in the history books

„Let's first look back to twelve months ago. In December of last year, we wrote of the 2014 vintage: »It was an extraordinarily warm year, the warmest in Germany since weather records have been kept.« We could just copy and paste the exact same sentence for the 2015 vintage as well. Because it was exactly the same, except, well, very different. We received 407 mm of precipitation between May and October of 2014, turning summer in Oberhausen downright tropical, while 2015 saw only 174 mm of precipitation over the same period.

In practice, this meant a set of very different viticultural decisions than in the year before. 2015 revolved around maximizing the soil's water retention to keep the vines from suffering significant drought stress. Looking back, we can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that our efforts paid off, thanks in no small part to the deep-reaching roots of the old vines.

September 28th marked the start of a month of sunny days and cool nights that would go on to deliver exceptional grapes in every quality level. The incredibly relaxed pace gave us the time needed to selectively harvest the botrytis-laced berries and achieve both a Beerenauslese and a Trockenbeerenauslese.

The first wines have now finished fermentation, and at this point we are already certain that 2015 will go down in the history books for far more than just record-breaking summer temperatures.”